Man on Two Ponies
Authors: Don Worcester
MAN ON TWO PONIES
DON WORCESTER
M. EVANS
Lanham
â¢
Boulder
â¢
New York
â¢
Toronto
â¢
Plymouth, UK
Published by M. Evans
An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Distributed by National Book Network
Copyright © 1992 by Don Worcester
First paperback edition 2014
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:
Worcester, Donald Emmet, 1915â
Man on two ponies / Don Worcester.
p. cm.â(An Evans novel of the West)
I. Title. II. Series.
PS3573.0688M3 199I 91-41370
813'.54âdc20
ISBN: 978-I-59077-398-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-I-59077-399-4 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesâPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.Printed in the United States of America
To Roger Russell (Nas Naga), who gave me the title.
The
books
that were most helpful in keeping the story historically accurate are: George H. Hyde,
A Sioux Chronicle
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), Robert W. Mardock,
The Reformers and the American Indians
(University of Missouri Press, 1975), James Mooney,
The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of
1890
(14th
Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896), Luther Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925), Rex Allen Smith,
Moon of Popping Trees
(Reader's Digest Press, 1975), Robert M. Utley,
The Last Days of the Sioux Nation
(Yale University Press, 1963), and Stanley Vestal,
Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932).
Chapter One
Wide-eyed, his heart pounding, ten-year-old Running Elk pressed his face against the cold windowâthe train was rushing headlong at the full moon, which was sitting on the track ahead. He held his breath, but gasped when the train whistle screamed. The moon defied the whistle and seemed to be growing largerâthe train couldn't miss it. Trembling, Running Elk glanced quickly at the other Brulé and Oglala boysâall were tensely staring out the windows as if paralyzed by fright. Then Spotted Tail's eighteen-year-old son Stays-at-Home, who had a scar across the bridge of his nose that turned white when he was angry, sang a brave song to mask his fear. “Enemies tremble at my name,” he began, and other boys joined in, but their voices weren't convincing.
They
know we'll
hit the moon and be killed.
Quivering in anticipation, Running Elk sat back, pulled his blanket around him, and closed his eyesâhe didn't want to watch.
His thoughts flew back, as they often did, to that day in the Moon of Thunderstorms three summers ago when his father Pawnee Killer had ridden away. Tall, muscular, with the dignity of a fearless warrior, Pawnee Killer had placed his hands on Running Elk's shoulders, his bear claw necklace clicking softly. He wore moccasins and his powerful legs were encased in fringed leggings of elk skin. On his breast were two scars made by tearing through his own flesh to free himself from the Sun Dance pole. To the Brulés, Oglalas, and other Tetons, or Prairie Sioux, Sun Dance scars
were a mark of honor, signifying that Pawnee Killer was among
the bravest of the brave.
“My son,” he said softly, “We may not meet again. Bluecoat soldiers are marching toward our last hunting ground. We must fight them or become like women.” He paused, while Running Elk looked up at him, feeling he would burst with love and admiration.
“Take me with you. I can shoot a rifle.”
“No, my son. You have seen only seven summers. Your time will come. Be brave always. Remember that it is better to die fighting your enemies than to run and live to be old and feeble.”
Across the tipi from them his mother, Scarlet Robe, sat in buckskin blouse and skirt, her oval face bent over the moccasin she was sewing. Her hands stopped moving as she listened, but she didn't turn her head. Leaving Running Elk, Pawnee Killer leaned over her tenderly. “I go,” he said, his voice husky.
Scarlet Robe looked up longingly at his face, which had lost its usual stem expression. “Come back to us safely, my man.”
As he followed his father from the tipi to watch the warriors ride away on their spirited war ponies, Running Elk glanced back at his mother. She was bent over the moccasin again, but he saw a tear roll down each cheek. Buffalo robe over his shoulder, and holding his Winchester in his right hand, Pawnee Killer headed
north with the others.
I want to be a warrior like
my
father. Nothing else matters.
Remembering his father's admonition to be brave always, Running Elk forced the moon from his thoughts. Exhausted by the tiresome train ride from Dakota Territory to Pennsylvania, he fell asleep. He didn't awaken until he felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him. Short, stocky round-faced Whistler, his fourteen-year-old friend, leaned over him, nodding toward the window.
“Look back,” he said.
Rubbing his tired eyes, Running Elk fearfully peered out the windowâthe moon was behind them!
They'd passed the edge of
the earth where the moon rose and hadn't fallen off! What could that mean? He stared at the moon, unbelieving.
Long Chin, or Charles Tackett, a solemn mixed blood of medium height and scraggly beard who was married to Brulé chief Spotted
Tail's daughter Red Road, entered the car. He'd been hired as
interpreter for the boys who were to attend the new Indian school
at the former cavalry post of Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. Running Elk knew that his father never trusted any interpreter hired by the government, but Long Chin seldom smiled, so maybe he didn't lie.
“We turned west at Harrisburg,” Long Chin told the boys in Lakota, the language of the Teton tribes. “That's why the moon is behind us. In the morning we'll be at Carlisle.”
I don't want to be at Carlisle. I want to be back at Rosebud.
Running Elk thought of that day not many suns ago when he and others had been running races among the tipis near Rosebud Agency. A twelve-year-old boy named Winter, whose forehead was pockmarked and who had an undying curiosity about the whites, joined them.
“There's a big crowd at the agency,” he told them. “Let's go see what's going on.” He was off on the run, breechcloth sailing behind him.
They trotted after him to the log buildings and saw many Brulé men and women standing outside the council room. The boys boldly walked up to the windows, shielded their eyes with both hands, and pressed their faces against the glass. Seated at a table
were two Wasicunsâwhite
menâone a tall anny officer with a big nose. With them was a white woman who smiled at the boys and held out sticks of candy with one hand, motioning for them to come in with the other. The boys squealed and ran off to talk about it.
“I wonder why those Wasicuns are here,” Running Elk said. “They never bring good news.”
“I don't care why they're here,” Plenty Kill replied. “I want some of that candy.” His father, the mixed blood Standing Bear, had a little store at the agency. Plenty
Kill,
a long-faced, bright-eyed boy of twelve, who was always among the first in any adventure, led the way. Running Elk brought up the rear.
I'll
probably be sorry
if
I talk to the Wasicuns, but I'd like some candy.
Long Chin met them at the door of the council room.
“Come in boys,” he said in Lakota. “I want to show you something.” Thinking he meant the candy, they trooped in, but what
he showed them were two short-haired, solemn-faced Indian boys dressed like whites. Long Chin nodded toward the tall officer, who forced a smile. There were some men Running Elk instinctively liked at first sight. Captain Richard Henry Pratt was not one of them.
“Captain Pratt asked me to tell you that if you go east to his new school you can learn to
talk
like whites and wear clothes like these Santee boys,” Long Chin continued. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?” Running Elk looked for the candy, but it had disappeared.
Just like the Wasicuns.
The boys left the room to talk about it. “I'm going to ask my father to let me go,” Plenty Kill said. “I know he'll want me to learn to talk like the Wasicuns.”
“Mine won't,” Running Elk said. “He hates all Wasicuns. I'm sure my mother won't want me to go either. Or my grandfather.” Since Pawnee Killer had ridden away three years earlier and had remained in Canada with Sitting Bull after defeating Long Hair Custer on the Greasy Grass, Running Elk and Scarlet Robe had lived with her father, Two Buck Elk, and his wife.
No Brulé parents were willing to send their children far away to learn to talk like the Wasicunsâonly the squawmen and mixed bloods were. Captain Pratt then appealed to Spotted Tail. A large, handsome man, a famous warrior, and head chief of the Brutes, he was known as Speak-with-the-Woman because of his attachment to the opposite sex. He had four wives and was “speaking with,” or courting, another. Ever since he had been held at Fort Leavenworth for two years, Spotted Tail had refused to fight the whites. “We must get along with them,” he often said. “They are more numerous than the leaves on all the trees.
If
we fight them we
will
be destroyed.” But Spotted Tail, who was able to manipulate agents, didn't allow them to rush his people into becoming made-over whites.